The Transformation of Muslim Societies around the World

Leaving aside the media’s sound and fury on the conflict between the west and the Islamic world, measured analysis shows another reality taking shape: rapprochement between these two civilizations, benefiting from a universal movement with roots in the Enlightenment. The historical and geographical sweep of this book discredits the notion of a specific Islamic demography. The range of fertility among Muslim women, for example, is as varied as religious behavior among Muslims in general. Whether agnostics, fundamentalist Salafis, or al-Qaeda activists, Muslims are a diverse group that prove the variety and individuality of Islam. Youssef Courbage and Emmanuel Todd consider different degrees of literacy, patriarchy, and defensive reactions among minority Muslim populations, underscoring the spread of massive secularization throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Sensitive to demographic variables and their reflection of personal and social truths, Courbage and Todd upend a dangerous meme: that we live in a fractured world close to crisis, struggling with an epidemic of closed cultures and minds made different by religion.

New Research on Intellectual Property, Innovation, and Development

The global economy is increasingly dominated by the production of knowledge goods and by struggles for control over information. This book provides an overview of the challenges and opportunities facing efforts to promote access to knowledge in Egypt. The essays, written by leaders in the field, favor a deeper understanding of how the production of information, innovation, culture, and knowledge affects the core of human development and human rights. Combining both theoretical and empirical approaches, the work will be of interest to scholars and practitioners dealing with intellectual property and innovation the world over. Contributors: Ahmed Abdel Latif, Hossam Bahgat, Jack Balkin, Sherif El-Kassas, Sherif Kamel, Nagla Rizk, Lea Shaver, Rebecca Wright.

Regime Power in Egypt and Syria

Notwithstanding the 2011 Arab Spring, autocratic continuity—not wide-ranging political change—remains the hallmark of the region’s upheaval. Contrasting Egypt and Syria, Joshua Stacher examines how executive power is structured in each country to show how these preexisting power configurations shaped the uprisings and, in turn, the outcomes. Even as Mubarak was forced to relinquish the Egyptian presidency, military generals from the regime were charged with leading the transition. The course of the Syrian uprising reveals a key difference: the decentralized character of Syrian politics. Political structures, elite alliances, state institutions, and governing practices are seldom swept away entirely—even following successful revolutions—so it is vital to examine the various contexts for regime survival. Elections, protests, and political struggles will continue to define the region in the coming years. Examining the lead-up to the Egyptian and Syrian uprisings helps us unlock the complexity behind the protests and transitions.

Cairo Papers Vol. 32, No. 2

This collection of essays revisits agrarian transformation in Arab countries in the light of new realities and emerging challenges. Apart from the urgency of the deepening food crisis, such realities include environmental challenges, changes in consumption and life-style choices, and a new set of rules governing the conditions of access to resources. The issue investigates the commonality and diversity in the current processes of agrarian transformation, based on empirical case studies from different Arab countries.

Across the globe, American-style and liberal arts universities are being established. From the first, the American University of Beirut, established in 1866, to the liberal arts institutions being established in Saudi Arabia, Ghana, and elsewhere in the twenty-first century, there is a clear sense of the global desire for the American approach to higher education as a way of counteracting traditional, more narrowly defined university educations. However, these universities operate in a distinctive dynamic that must learn to bridge one culture with another, and leadership of such institutions must by its nature focus on such complexities and tensions. Throughout the chapters of this book, this unique element of these universities will be better understood through the stories and experiences as presented by their presidents, provosts, and other academic leaders.

Cairo Papers Vol. 33, No. 2

Nicholas S. Hopkins

Anthropology as a discipline came to Egypt around 1900, as foreign anthropologists reported home on the culture they found. Gradually the intellectual approach was influenced by the functionalist school, stressing that a society consists of interlocking parts. As Egyptians took the lead in anthropology, in the 1930s, the discipline entered into the debate about the need to reform Egyptian society and culture especially in the rural areas, against a general background of functionalism. This approach dominated through the 1960s, when there was a break in Egypt because of the Six-Day War and in world anthropology because of the emergence of new intellectual models. This study traces the evolution of anthropology in Egypt through the stories of its practitioners such as Blackman, Galal, Evans-Pritchard, Hocart, Abbas Ammar, Hamid Ammar, Berque, Abou Zeid, el Hamamsy, Uways, and their contemporaries, showing their challenges and accomplishments.

The Primacy of Empowerment

With its emphasis on the primacy of change, this study arrives at a particularly auspicious moment, as the Middle East continues to be convulsed by the greatest upheavals in generations, which have come to be known as the Arab Spring. Originally prepared as the tenth-anniversary volume of the UNDP’s Arab Human Development Report, Arab Human Development in the Twenty-first Century places empowerment at the center of human development in the Arab world, viewing it not only from the vantage point of a more equitable distribution of economic resources but also of fundamental legal, educational, and political reform. The ten chapters in this book follow closely this political economy framework. They look back at what Arab countries have achieved since the early 2000s and forward to what remains to be done to reach full development. Supported by a wealth of statistical material, they cover the rule of law, the evolution of media, the persistence of corruption, the draining of resources through armed conflict, the dominance and increase of poverty, the environment, and religious education. The concluding chapter attempts an inventory of the world literature and different experiences on democratic transition to explore where the region could be heading. This critical and timely study is indispensable reading to development specialists and to Middle East scholars and students alike, as well as to anyone with an interest in the future trajectory of the region.

Cairo Papers Vol. 20, No. 3

The proceedings of the Arab Regional Women’s Studies Workshop held at the American University in Cairo in May 1997. Among the theoretical and practical issues discussed are: the importance of introducing gender studies in order to achieve social equality in the Arab World, rethinking political and research priorities in order to give more attention to gender issues, and comparing gender programs in some Arab countries.

Revolution and Beyond

Beginning in Tunisia, and spreading to as many as seventeen Arab countries, the street protests of the ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011 empowered citizens and banished their fear of speaking out against governments. The Arab Spring belied Arab exceptionalism, widely assumed to be the natural state of stagnation in the Arab world amid global change and progress. The collapse in February 2011 of the regime in the region’s most populous country, Egypt, led to key questions of why, how, and with what consequences did this occur? Inspired by the “contentious politics” school and Social Movement Theory, Arab Spring in Egypt addresses these issues, examining the reasons behind the collapse of Egypt’s authoritarian regime; analyzing the group dynamics in Tahrir Square of various factions: labor, youth, Islamists, and women; describing economic and external issues and comparing Egypt’s transition with that of Indonesia; and reflecting on the challenges of transition. “Its analysis is as fresh as the breathtaking events it covers.”—Nathan Brown, George Washington University “Arab Spring in Egypt is a modern history study that brings much greater understanding to light about the views of modern Arab people and the future they see for their country.”—Midwest Book Review

Egypt’s Changing Northwest Coast

The arid regions impose strict limits upon human existence and activity. And yet by respecting those limits, the flourishing and stable culture of these regions has for centuries been sustained. In the late twentieth century, however, forces such as modernization, globalization, and the politics and economics of nations became so great that major changes in the old ways had to take place for the sake of survival. Egypt’s northwest coast, where meager coastal rains have supported a sparse but thriving population of Bedouin, saw the arrival of settlers from the Nile Valley, accustomed to a very different way of life and production, and hordes of tourists whose “empty, silent structures” effectively turned the most productive strip of the coastal range into an artificial desert. This study documents the great accommodations that took place to ensure the arid rangelands of the northwest coast continue to be viable for the demands of human existence imposed on them. “A main thesis of this study,” the authors write, “is that change in the northwest coast of Egypt has strong parallels in other arid regions of the wider Arab world; and specific comparisons are made to change underway elsewhere—especially regarding the transformation of Arab nomadic pastoralist production to a new form of ranching, and the related changes of sedentarization and the monetization of most aspects of livelihood.”

Environment, Change, and Sustainability in Southern Egypt

Sustainable development and environmental change have become two of the watchwords of the new century. But what do they mean for ordinary people living in some of the harshest environments in the world where survival is the driving force? This book sets out to examine these issues and how they affect, and are affected by, Bedouin communities living in the arid areas of the Nubian Desert in southeastern Egypt. Written by a joint Egyptian, Russian, and British research team, this book seeks to examine how the Bedouin of this area have coped with the environmental changes brought about after the construction of the Aswan High Dam and resulting formation of Lake Nasser. After documenting the nature of these changes, the authors show the practical and strategic ways in which the Bedouin have responded by adapting both their use of environmental resources and the social and economic dimensions of their community. Bedouins by the Lake argues that people in these communities are active agents of change and must not be seen as passive victims. For them, sustainable development and environmental change are not abstract academic debates, but real-life, everyday issues around which they must organize their lives.

Governance, Urban Space, and Global Modernity

This cross-disciplinary, ethnographic, contextualized, and empirical volume—with an updated introduction to take account of the dramatic events of early 2011—explores the meaning and significance of urban space, and maps the spatial inscription of power on the mega-city of Cairo. Suspicious of collective life and averse to power-sharing, Egyptian governance structures weaken but do not stop the public’s role in the remaking of their city. What happens to a city where neo-liberalism has scaled back public services and encouraged the privatization of public goods, while the vast majority cannot afford the effects of such policies? Who wins and loses in the “march to the modern and the global” as the government transforms urban spaces and markets in the name of growth, security, tourism, and modernity? How do Cairenes struggle with an ambiguous and vulnerable legal and bureaucratic environment when legality is a privilege affordable only to the few or the connected? This companion volume to Cairo Cosmopolitan further develops the central insights of the Cairo School of Urban Studies.

Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the New Globalized Middle East

In the cities of the Arab world, while the media focus overwhelmingly on questions of religiosity and war, the future of urban modernity and political globalism is taking shape. As the Egyptian state reaches out to capture the apparent promises of neoliberalism, Cairenes struggle over and redefine their place, identity, and material welfare. Bringing together a distinguished interdisciplinary group of scholars, this volume explores what happens when new forms of privatization meet collectivist pasts, public space is sold off to satisfy investor needs and tourist gazes, and the state plans for Egypt’s future in desert cities while stigmatizing and neglecting Cairo’s popular neighborhoods. These dynamics produce surprising contradictions and juxtapositions that are coming to define today’s Middle East. Luxury malls owned by the military or foreign investors compete with flourishing but criminalized open-air markets; Nubian, Upper Egyptian and labor-migrant identities confront a renaissance of Arab nationalism; and new chic coffee houses, crumbling movie palaces, and resurgent working-class cultures offer radically clashing versions of public and gender sociability. This volume launches the Cairo School of Urban Studies, committed to fusing political-economy and ethnographic methods and sensitive to ambivalence and contingency, to reveal the new contours and patterns of modern power emerging in the urban frame. Cairo shows us that divergent cosmopolitanisms—both elite and working-class—are emerging across a broad spectrum of the polity, making new claims for political space, recognition, and representation. Contributors: Mona Abaza, Nezar AlSayyad, Paul Amar, Walter Armbrust, Vincent Battesti, Fanny Colonna, Eric Denis, Dalila ElKerdany, Yasser Elsheshtawy, Farha Ghannam, Galila El Kadi, Anouk de Koning, Petra Kuppinger, Anna Madoeuf, Catherine Miller, Nicolas Puig, Said Sadek, Omnia El Shakry, Diane Singerman, Elizabeth A. Smith, Leïla Vignal, Caroline Williams.

Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the New Globalized Middle East

Bringing together a distinguished interdisciplinary group of scholars, this volume explores what happens when new forms of privatization meet collectivist pasts, public space is sold off to satisfy investor needs and tourist gazes, and the state plans for Egypt’s future in desert cities while stigmatizing and neglecting Cairo’s popular neighborhoods. These dynamics produce surprising contradictions and juxtapositions that are coming to define today’s Middle East. The original publication of this volume launched the Cairo School of Urban Studies, committed to fusing political-economy and ethnographic methods and sensitive to ambivalence and contingency, to reveal the new contours and patterns of modern power emerging in the urban frame. Contributors: Mona Abaza, Nezar AlSayyad, Paul Amar, Walter Armbrust, Vincent Battesti, Fanny Colonna, Eric Denis, Dalila ElKerdany, Yasser Elsheshtawy, Farha Ghannam, Galila El Kadi, Anouk de Koning, Petra Kuppinger, Anna Madoeuf, Catherine Miller, Nicolas Puig, Said Sadek, Omnia El Shakry, Diane Singerman, Elizabeth A. Smith, Leïla Vignal, Caroline Williams.

Cairo Papers Vol. 30, No. 1

This study seeks to provide a critical analysis of child protection policies in Egypt and examine whether these policies are based on the rights-based model of child protection that is embodied in the Convention for Child Rights (CRC). It identifies the ways in which these policies fail to link child rights and child protection and thus are unable to provide integrated and accessible services that meet children’s needs. Cairo Papers in Social Science 30:1

Women’s Histories in Islamic Societies

Most manifestations, research has accepted stereotypical images of Muslim women, treating their outward such as veiling, as passive and oppressive. Muslim women have been depicted as different, and by exoticizing (orientalizing) them—or Islamic society in general—“they” have been dealt with outside of general women’s history and regarded as having little to contribute to the writing of world history or to the life of their sisters worldwide. By approaching widely used sources with different questions and methodologies, and by using new or little-used research (with much primary research), this book redresses these deficiencies. Scholars revisit and reevaluate scripture and scriptural interpretation; church records involving non-Muslim women of the Arab world; archival court records dating from the present back to the Ottoman period; and the oral and material culture and its written record, including art and architecture, oral history, textbooks, Sufi practices, and the politics of dress. By deconstructing the past, these scholars offer fresh perspectives on women’s roles and aspirations in Middle East societies. Contributors: Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Sheila S. Blair, Randi Deguilhem, Mamoun Fandy, Richard Freeland, Fatima Zohra Guechi, Nelly Hanna, Howayda al-Harithy, Mervat F. Hatem, Bernard Heyberger, Valerie J. Hoffman, Haifaa Khalafallah, Ramadan al-Khowli, Patricia Mihaly Nabti, Lisa Pollard, Mona Russell, Elyse Semerdjian, Selçuk Aksin Somel, Amira El-Azhary Sonbol, Denise A. Spellberg, Barbara Freyer Stowasser, Judith E. Tucker, Fariba Zarinebaf, Madeline Zilfi.

Political Reform in the Arab World

Some governments of the Middle East have taken steps toward political reform. Are these meaningful changes, or empty attempts to pacify domestic and international public opinion? How do we distinguish reforms that alter the character of the political system from those that are only window dressing? Beyond the Façade evaluates the changes that are taking place in the region and explores the potential for further reform. The essays provide careful, detailed examinations of ten countries, highlighting the diversity of processes and problems. Contributors: Nathan Brown, Julia Choucair-Vizoso, Michele Dunne, Amr Hamzawy, Ellen Lust-Okar, Marina Ottaway, Sarah Phillips, Meredith Riley, Hugh Roberts, and Paul Salem. “A significant and needed contribution.”—Robert Springborg, SOAS, University of London “Superb . . . coherent, concise, and consistently insightful.”—Foreign Affairs

Governance, Urban Space, and Global Modernity

This cross-disciplinary, ethnographic, contextualized, and empirical volume explores the meaning and significance of urban space, and maps the spatial inscription of power on the mega-city of Cairo. Suspicious of collective life and averse to power-sharing, Egyptian governance structures weaken but do not stop the public’s role in the remaking of their city. What happens to a city where neo-liberalism has scaled back public services and encouraged the privatization of public goods, while the vast majority cannot afford the effects of such policies? Who wins and loses in the “march to the modern and the global” as the government transforms urban spaces and markets in the name of growth, security, tourism, and modernity? How do Cairenes struggle with an ambiguous and vulnerable legal and bureaucratic environment when legality is a privilege affordable only to the few or the connected? This companion volume to Cairo Cosmopolitan (2006) further develops the central insights of the Cairo School of Urban Studies. Contributors: Khaled Adham, Jennifer Bell, Agnès Deboulet, Taline Djerdjerian, W.J. Dorman, Bénédicte Florin, Jörg Gertel, Katarzyna Grabska, Patrick Haenni, Kareem Ibrahim, Samia Mehrez, Sarah Ben Néfissa, Agnieszka Paczynska, Samuli Schielke, Mulki Al-Sharmani, Diane Singerman, Hania Sobhy, Malika Zeghal.

Growing Up Cosmopolitan in the Modern Middle East

For members of Cairo’s upper classes, cosmopolitanism is a form of social capital, deployed whenever they acquire or consume transnational commodities, or goods that are linked in the popular imagination to other, more ‘modern’ places. In a series of carefully contextualized case studies—of Arabic children’s magazines, Pokémon, private schools and popular films, coffee shops and fast-food restaurants—Mark Allen Peterson describes the social practices that create class identities. He traces these processes from childhood into adulthood, examining how taste and style intersect with a changing educational system and economic liberalization. Peterson reveals how uneasy many cosmopolitan Cairenes are with their new global identities, and describes their efforts to root themselves in the local through religious, nationalist, or linguistic practices.

Family Crisis and the State in the Middle East

Over the course of the twentieth century, most Middle East states adopted a shari’a-based system for recognizing marriages. Partly in reaction to these dynamics, new types of marriage that evade the control of the state and religious authorities have emerged. These marriages allow for men and women to engage in sexual relationships, but do not require that they register the marriage with the state, that they live together, or that the man be financially responsible for the wife or household. In this new study, Frances Hasso explores the extent to which these new relationship forms are used and to what ends, as well as the legal and cultural responses to such innovations. She outlines what is at stake for the various groups—the state, religious leaders, opposition groups, young people, men and women of different classes and locations, and feminist organizations—in arguments for and against these relationship forms.